


The Divorce

by supernovan



Category: Mean Girls (2004)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28098531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernovan/pseuds/supernovan
Summary: In the summer before Cady comes to North Shore, Sharon Norbury has a divorce. This is about the school year that led up to it.
Kudos: 1





	The Divorce

* * *

**Mr.** **Duvall** : So...how was your summer?

 **Ms. Norbury** : I got divorced.

* * *

Sharon Norbury had accepted the fact that most of her students would always be stupid. In her 15 years of being a schoolteacher, she had lived through several personal epochs: a phase of self-doubt and self-blame; one of permanent rage; a deep and long melancholy; a manic attempt to overcome all odds and a subsequent burnout; and, finally, inner peace. She had finally arrived to the calm acknowledgement that she could not change people's intelligence.

What she could not accept, however, were intelligent students who pretended to be stupid. Whichever class she taught, there were always a few of them. She watched as these young men and women, who had matured quicker than their peers, suddenly began to evolve backwards.

She was aware that many things were happening in her students' heads -- she recalled that things had been happening in her head at that time as well. You got bored of your old self, acted out, fell in love and changed within weeks. She had had her own timeline back then: nerd, goth girl, band kid, theater kid, crazy girl, depressed loner, then nerd again. Thankfully, this quest for identity was behind her. She knew that the kids would have it behind them someday, too.

She imagined Regina George as a grown-up. An economist, perhaps. A financial trader. A robotics engineer, if she wanted to! If she only wanted to -- but, alas, she wanted something else. Sharon Norbury did not care what this something was, although she suspected it. She herself cared about one thing only: making Regina George be herself.

* * *

Sharon met Mrs George at the first parent-teacher meeting of the schoolyear. She had heard about her from her colleagues and braced herself. Mrs George came in as though she were meeting a cast member at Disneyland.

"Mrs Norbury! It's so great to meet you! I've heard so much about you!"

Mrs Norbury had become used to hearing this from parents of students who hated her. "You must be Mrs George. Please, take a seat."

June George treated sitting down, the most mundane act of all, as something so pleasurable that every millisecond had to be lived to the fullest. She arched her back, swayed her hips and crossed her legs in a grandiose circle, like a gymnast, before asking:

"So, what's cookin'? How's my Regina doing in Math?"

"Mrs George," said Sharon, "your daughter is the best student in my class, and yet her grades are some of the worst."

"Whaaaaaaaaaat!?" cried Mrs George, with a look that Sharon could not decipher. It radiated a mixture of friendliness, confusion, joy and mocking. Sharon could not figure out if Mrs George was mocking her or herself.

"I realised while marking her tests that she understands Math perfectly. She knows the methods -- she just uses them on the wrong problems. Every time. And I think it's on purpose."

"Well, her daddy is a banker. I'm not surprised. But as to why she does it on the wrong problems," said Mrs George, smiling the way no other person smiled, "I don't know."

"You _really_ don't know?"

June George's eyes laughed. "I don't have the faintest clue, baby."


End file.
